Farrowing

Cold! The kind of heart stopping cold that makes you cough as you take in freezing air, the kind you bundle against until your joints are stiff and awkward; that is how this March morning was. Snow swirled in the brutal wind, and closed your eyes against the stinging flakes. Bonnie and I were going to help with the pigs.

Little pigs are born after 114 days gestation, the book says. When figuring this out in early November, the farmer (in this case our dad), counted ahead to mid-March when the spring has often begun in southern Iowa. The spring sunshine will be glowing, and the breezes wafting, and birds singing. That is how one hopes farrowing season will be. March is also the season for the biggest rip snortingest blizzard and cold snap of the winter.

Dad had twelve sows ready to farrow (i.e., deliver baby pigs). Each sow averages six or eight piglets. Each piglet sells for cash money when grown to the market weight and sold. Cash money is a very good thing, we knew. Now it was time to save those baby pigs from the cold that threatened to kill them before they got a chance to live.

Daddy took us in the old pick up truck to the hog house. This was a 60-foot long tile building with a concrete floor and a peaked roof the length of the building that sloped down on both sides. An aisle through the center length was tall enough to stand up straight. The wire pens on either side opened into the aisle. Windows high up gave a bit of daylight inside, but Dad had wired up electric lights, and set up a little cob-burning stove vented out the chimney. It gave out minimal heat, but a hover kept a little heat directed to the floor where he had placed old boxes and old feed sacks.

Inside the dim, quiet building we were at least out of the wind. Still the cold was intense and I was always conscious of it bearing down. The smell was intensely of pig. There is no other name for the odor. There is no getting away from it. Pigs smell this way, and very soon the workers also smell piggy. Sows in the pens barked angrily. We were taught they say, “oink.” These old girls were cold and uncomfortable and angry. Their vocal sounds were that of barking big dogs! Dad was readying a pen for a newcomer. Each pen had a bale of home grown oat straw for bedding the cold floor. A metal water pan was filled and placed in the pen as well. The door to the pen was open and an angry old mamma was directed into the pen. She doubled back and bucked and hollered and protested, but Daddy kept her on track with his “Suiee, ssssss, suiee suiee sssssssst.”

At last she bumbled into the stall and grabbed the water pan in her mouth and threw it against the wall spilling water over the icy floor.

“Here, girl! Take ‘er easy now!” murmured Dad as I cowered behind him.

These were massive animals—as tall as my shoulders and weighing five times what I did. They were aggressive and mean. If one were to attack, you would be struck down in a hurry! I did not want to be scared. I wanted to be in this to help!

Daddy told me to watch for sows showing. He showed me a “showing” sow.

She was leaking pink membrane and water under her tail. This meant she was going to deliver babies soon. She was pacing her pen. She was loud and belligerent. She picked up straw in her mouth and flung it into the air, and she growled at the sows in neighboring pens, and she butted her head on the pen door. At last after 20 minutes of her agitation, she lay down on her side exposing two rows of pink teats from forelegs to tail. Her milk machine was swollen and tight appearing. She lay with her tail to the pen door where I could watch the “show.” There got to be more and more of the awful mess and fluid coming out, and with a loud grunt a shot of fluid came out along with a lump of something. I thought it must be an internal organ, and I called to Dad. He came and said, “Here is a pig!”

He reached over the pen fence and retrieved the slippery package of membrane. He rubbed the object with his gloved hand and there beneath his rubbing hand was a little white rubber pig nose! And just behind the nose were two sleepy eyes, and with another stroke, there was a white wet velvet piggy! He took in a gasp of air and his body seemed to inflate and he kicked, and made tiny grunts of his own. Now his eyes were bright and knowing, and Dad handed the pig to me.

“Take care and don’t pull off his umbilical cord or he’ll bleed,” he told me. “Take him to the stove and put him in a box, and keep all her pigs in a separate box be cause sows will eat pigs not their own. Don’t mix ‘em up!”

I watched that sow the next hour and she gave us a pig every few minutes.

She had white ones, and black spotted ones, and a few reds. Some were close enough that I could reach the pig, but most of them were out of my reach and Daddy came and got them, but it was mine to clean them and put them in the box. Bonnie was watching a sow of her own, and Daddy had several he was monitoring. With each pig I felt pure absolute joy. We were participating in life! This was important!

When my sow was finished, she “cleaned,“ Daddy said. This meant she had passed the placenta, which marked the end of her task of delivering. More straw was laid down for her, and we brought her warmed pigs back to her and she lay down and wallowed about as the babies nuzzled and hunted for a teat of their own.

Some were too weak to get up to the table, and had to be taken back and warmed some more. Others were just shy or destined to be runts. We worried about each of them. They squealed and grunted and momma sow gave contented milk letting down grunts.

That day, seven sows farrowed and only a couple of pigs died. One was born dead, and the other just couldn’t get warm and keep breathing. Dad said it was a miracle!

I liked little pigs immediately. They are not little embryos when born. They are actual really little pigs. They are born bright-eyed and ready to eat or play and live! They have a smiling little face and a curly tail. Because they have no knees, they run and romp on stiff legs their little heads bobbing and ears fluttering. They make sociable grunts and loud squeals to announce their presence. They suckle eagerly and hard. Milk runs out the sides of their mouths. They stop suckling and gasp for breath now and again, then resume all fresh and rested. And when they are through playing, they flop down in a pile of siblings in the sunshine and sleep heartily

Mom and Dad counseled us on talking about our experience birthin’ pigs.

Most little girls would not have been allowed to witness this kind of thing. It wasn’t thought to be “nice.” Girls our age were busy this blizzard time playing with paper dolls, or reading books, or practicing piano, or learning Sunday school lessons.

I was proud that I was considered a part of a family that believed me to be mature enough to do actual farm work. It was an honor!

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